Sunday, October 28, 2012

Daily Stitching

My daily stitching project has become a very welcome part of my life. I'm really enjoying sitting down everyday to spend a bit of time doing some hand stitching, it's almost like a daily meditation. I spend anywhere from five minutes to an hour doing each one. I start with a four inch square of fabric that I've previously printed in black. All of my stitching is done with pearl cotton in black, I use three different sizes, #5, #8 and #12. Here's a look at my basic supplies.
Many of the squares were cut out of a large piece of fabric that I had mono-printed. The piece didn't come out as I had intended, but cut up each square is slightly different and works perfectly for some hand stitching.
Some of the squares were printed just for this project, but many of them were left over samples I printed from new screens, stamps or found objects. The squares are a variety of fabrics, most of them are cotton, either muslin or a white dyers cloth. There are also linen, rayon, cotton damask and some polyester. The next photo shows pieces cut from polyester that I had printed almost twenty years ago. It is a very thin, flimsy fabric.
This close up shows some damask,muslin and white dyers cloth.
I back each piece with white flannel for two reasons; it gives some definition to the stitches and it adds coverage and stability to the thinner fabrics. I don't use a hoop while stitching. I keep my flannel and thread in a basket, unless I'm traveling and then everything gets tossed into a plastic ziplock bag.
Each piece is numbered when I finish it. I started on my birthday and will finish the day before my next one. This is how the back looks.
#225 - #228
Sewn together in rows of 19 blocks each, there are twelve rows completed.
This is the start of today's square, it's a linen and hemp blend fabric cut from a failed mono- print, stitching with #8 thread.
On another note; the autumn inspired piece has changed appearances again and will probably continue morphing since none of it is sewn yet.

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Autumn inspiration

Autumn has arrived in Idaho and the leaves are looking pretty good, even the ones that have to be raked up.
Before we left on our trip, I prepared a pile of silk hexagons so that they were ready to baste the edges down. I haven't done them all (and I may not), but the ones that are done have been put up on the design wall. I'm still unsure of how I'm going to put them together and of the final arrangement. I have two very different background fabrics that I'm considering, one a dull green silk noil the other a rust, green, yellow silk broadcloth. My inspiration was an image in my head of the fall colors that I drove through on our trip to the east coast two years ago. Now I'm thinking more of a view from above with a river meandering thru.
Daily stitching project #217 - #224

Saturday, October 20, 2012

Hundertwasser

One of the highlights of our trip (at least for me), was a stop to see an apartment building designed by Hundertwasser .I have been a fan of his work for a long time and before we left had checked my Vienna guide book for the location of the building. It would not have been possible to walk to it from where our boat was docked, so I was disappointed, but decided to focus on what we could do. Then the first night on the boat I read through the listing of optional tours and to my delight the bus tour of Vienna included a stop at the Hundertwasser house! I signed up immediately. It was tough to get pictures because it's in a narrow alley with an undulating street that was packed with other tourists besides me.
I did purchase a few things.
I already have a book of his work and have used it for inspiration in the past. In 2003 I participated in a Journal Quilt project and all of my monthly pieces were based on parts of his artwork.
Since returning home I've been inspired again by his artwork and have a couple of different ideas working away in my mind.

Thursday, October 18, 2012

Three days in Budapest

Our trip started with a three day stay in Budapest. We spent most of our time walking and looking, so much to see! Buildings
Night time lights
Details
Doors
Statues
And even a wedding scene being filmed for a movie.
Budapest is a fascinating city, I really enjoyed it and would love to go back for a longer stay. There is so much to see and do.

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Budapest, Prague and a cold

Home from a wonderful trip to Budapest, a Danube River Cruise and Prague, unfortunately I'm feeling a bit under the weather today. A bit of a cold combined with jet lag has me feeling kinda low. Blogger is also giving me some problems and keeps rearranging the order of my photos. So here is a preview of some of what I saw, and thanks to the blogger software, my daily stitching pieces that I did during the trip are right in the middle.

Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Vacation Time

I've been pretty silent here for awhile, mainly because I haven't been doing much. My design wall is empty and I have twelve feet of design wall! I have been getting ready to go on a vacation,cruising down the Danube River.I'm all packed and ready to go at 4AM tomorrow morning. I have some knitting to bring with, books on my ipad, my daily stitching project, and a pile of silk hexagons.
Each hexagon has a piece of light weight woven fusible interfacing on the back so I will be turning under the edges and basting them down. Like English paper piecing without the paper. Eventually I'll sew them together in a rather abstract view of Autumn. Daily stitching project #192 - #198
#199 - #203
I'll be back in a couple of weeks.